Sunday, December 25, 2005

Christmas 2005 - the Aftermath

This year's holiday celebration was the most mellow of all of the ones in recent memory. It was just us, my 4 cousins and my aunt, which is about 40 people shy of the normal. For once we actually didn't have to do a buffet due to sheer space constraints. One thing that we didn't veer from was an excess of food. We still had a ton left over after we were all bursting at the seams. Some day I will learn the value of restraint. Not right now though - too busy digesting.

The chickens were quite well received and we all relaxed and had a few cocktails and watched the first few episodes of the first season of Lost on DVD. Definately more mellow than the usual chaotic scene at our 40+ family gatherings.

The two little cousins who made out like bandits this year and my
poochalicious dog, checking out the post chaos damage. Since everyone
else is still in Vietnam - they ended up with piles and piles of stuff. There were 4 dogs running about and my dog was having a fantastico time.

There actually was some knitting done. I've started on the decreases for the evil Clapotis, (which I've given myself until Tuesday to complete) and in my lap is the anti-social Benito Mussolini. (who really needs a bath and a brush out)

And the highlight of my Christmas haul... a Louet fine drumcarder which was purchased through the lovely Wendy at her Lanas de Libelula shop. She threw in a bag of hand dyed silk in cotton candy colors and a bit of some in this purplish colorway that I luuuurve - she even wrapped it and delivered it too! Let me just say... it kicks ASS. In about an hour I had carded the whole 16oz bag of alpaca that I had gotten at Mid Missouri Alpacas over the summer. I spent that much time hand carding an itty bitty rolag with my hand cards.

That's a skein of Koigu laying there for scale - the drum carder is a lot bigger than I had thought it would be. The next picture is a rolag of alpaca next to some of the silk that Wendy gave me. I'm not sure why the silk came out nubby - I may try to tease it out a bit more before feeding it into the small drum and it might come out smoother. The only thing I need to practice is to feed the fiber in more slowly so it doesnt get gumped up in the teeth. But the jury's in - it kicks ass!

Another action shot - this is as I'm peeling off the aligned fibers from the large drum. It comes off much easier when the drum is near completely filled up - the less fiber there is on there - the harder it is to pull it off in one piece. Whats really nice is that it helps get out the dirt and VM that might still be stuck in there. The alpaca was pretty clean really - but heres what came out of it after I was done. Nummi isnt it?

Comments

Good lord those batts are huuuuge! Very cool. The silk is going to be nubby because it's noils, the buglicious short bits, 3 Bags Full blends them as part of their batts for their really unique crazy blended batts, but I don't think they'd be much fun to spin alone without being blended by a longer fiber. Haven't tried it though, so I could be horribly, horribly wrong.